Chapter Text
After Caine defeatedly ceded master controls back to kinger, the circus had begun it's shutdown protocols, and materializing before everyone stood their own red exit door, some of whom used them more enthusiastically than the others. The Circus used lower resolution and quality textures already, but seeing it slowly begin to remove and simplify the geometry and materials of models and meshes was incredibly jarring. Before long all color seeped away and left grey geometry, then stripped down to wireframe polygon counts. The first to leave was Ragatha, her form disappearing into the silhouette of the doorframe, followed by Gangle and then Zooble.
Caine timidly floated down to the floor, bubble bursting beside him for the last time as he watched his home, his world, disappear before his artificial eyes. Next left Pomni, leaving only me and Kinger as the last two humans in the circus. My hand stopped just before the door handle, my heart pounding in my chest as my throat tightened. Was I even ready to leave? Did I want to leave? Before I could question it further, I felt myself being pushed into the doorway. Looking back at the circus, the shapes of Kaufmo and Ribbit stood there, their hands outstretched as if they had pushed me, but as my eyes adjusted their forms disappated, and in their place stood kinger. The only thing he had for facial real estate were eyes, but I could tell the bittersweet look in them said one thing. He wasn't coming with us.
"Sorry, but I'm going to stay here for a bit. Go, see the world you were robbed of. Please, for me, Jax."
That was four months ago, and adjusting to the real world again definitely came with it's challenges. Walking was definitely a struggle at first, my body had atrophied a lot after 5 and a half years, even if I was under full medical supervision. Apparently the building I'd entered the circus in sent a distress alarm to the nearest hospital, so my effectively vegetative body was retrieved rather quickly. None of my identification notes were on me when I went under, so the hospital labeled me a John Doe, even after I awoke I refused to give them anything. I played the whole thing off as if I'd suffered amnesia, a new person who could be anybody. Funny, it really wasn't any different than the circus.
My name right now is Felix Jaxon, and I'm currently shimmying a hanger into somebody's car door. Guess some things never change, even after half a decade. God, this cold air is insufferable, of course I woke up midway into december, why wouldn't I? Whoever these C&A guys are, I'm gonna have to file a complaint about them opening a location in Chicago of all places. Oh well, at least this Civic will do something to keep me from sleeping in the snow again tonight.
Before I could get it open, a beam of light caught my form. Damn, I guess I wasn't being as quiet as I thought I was. I froze before finally charging out of the driveway and back onto the street, the person who caught me throwing their shoes at me as they shouted obscenities in a gratingly high pitched voice, one that felt eerily familiar. In my haste to escape, I had slipped on a patch of ice that sent my chin straight into the concrete sidewalk, the world spinning around me in a daze. The stranger came to look over me, likely so they could restrain me long enough for police to arrive. As I caught a better view of their face, it looked strangely familiar. Like I'd seen them in a dream or something, or if we'd met not long ago. She had dark brown, almost black hair tied in a messy bun, glasses adorned her freckled face and her jawline was soft, almost circular.
Her voice was the part that annoyed me most, not that the voice itself was annoying, but just that I swear I'd heard it thousands of times but I just couldn't place where I'd heard it from. It sounded so goddamn familiar, like I'd suffered through it cautioning me before. Or comforting me in a dark time. Or like it'd... Wait, I HAVE heard this voice before! We've been in this same position before, she'd stood over me just once back when we were in the circus, begging me to fight back as she attacked me relentlessly! The day Caine gave up and let us just shoot eachother, the teammate that I'd tried so desperately to push away.
"P-pom pom?" I stuttered out, her worried rambling ceasing in her throat as I concussedly uttered that nickname she hated so much. "... H-how do you know that name? Who are you???" She said in a more fearful tone, her face turning from concern for me to fear for her own safety, slowly backing away as if I we're here to take her or something.
"Jeez, you really can't take a joke, can you?"